Chapter 24 #2
Not her. I've told myself that clearly enough over the last three weeks that I believe it.
She's in Los Angeles finishing the tour, or she's on a bus somewhere between cities, or she's already back in Atlanta—and wherever she is, she's not here, because she asked not to be found, and I respected that, and this is just housekeeping, someone from the hotel about the checkout time, or Mack coming to say goodbye.
I open the door.
She's standing in the hallway on crutches.
That's the first thing I register—the crutches, the way she's balancing her weight—and then I see her face, and the bruising that's two weeks old and faded to yellow-green at the edges, and the way she's holding herself with the careful stillness of someone managing pain they're trying not to show, and I understand immediately that minor injuries and routine overnight monitoring were not the truth.
None of that is what I say.
"What are you doing here?" I ask.
Her jaw tightens slightly. "I need to talk to you."
I step back and let her in. Not because I've decided anything—because she's on crutches in a hotel hallway and I'm not the kind of person who leaves someone on crutches in a hotel hallway.
I hold the door, and she moves past me into the suite's living area, and I close the door and stand with my back to it for a moment and try to find the version of myself that knows how to do this without breaking.
She doesn't sit. She stands in the middle of the room, holding the crutches, looking at the packed bags by the wall, then at me. Something moves across her face when she sees the bags.
"You're leaving," she says.
"Today."
She nods. Looks at the floor for a moment. Then back up at me.
"I'll be quick," she says. “Then I’ll go and let you finish here.”
I cross to the window and stand with my back to her because if I'm looking at her face, I won't be able to stay inside whatever is holding me together right now. Outside, the Strip is doing what it always does—indifferent, permanent, overexposed in the desert light.
"Say what you came to say," I tell her.
I can hear her weight shift on the crutches.
"The last six months have been hard on both of us," she says.
"I know I haven't made things easier. But when you agreed to the two-month arrangement—when you made that decision without telling me—you cut me to the core.
Because I never would have done that to you.
I would have stood beside you, come hell or high water, because that's what real love does. "
My jaw tightens.
"I understand your thought process," she continues.
"I understand you believed you were protecting both of us.
But you didn't ask me. You decided what I could handle, and you acted on it, and you have to understand what that cost." A pause.
"I've had a long time to think through this.
On a bus, in a hospital, and in a lot of dark hours I wasn't expecting.
And what I've come back to every time is the same answer.
What we have is my love of a lifetime. There is nothing and no one in the world that compares to you. "
I don't move.
"I love you, Luke." Her voice catches once, then holds.
"I love you more than anything. No matter what's happened—if you asked me to drop everything right now, I would.
No regrets. No looking back. I finally understand that there's no time for fear and no time to be apart if we want to be together. "
The room is quiet apart from the clock ticking on the fireplace mantle.
I should say something. I can feel her waiting. I can feel the weight of the silence that happens when someone has just handed you everything they have and is standing there with nothing left in reserve.
I don't turn around.
There's something I have to say. I've known what it is for three weeks.
I've been contemplating it in this hotel room, trying to find the right perspective to solve it.
The reason I haven't spoken is the same as why I stood at this window instead of facing her directly.
Saying it would mean admitting that I knew all along—while I was doing it—that it mirrored the monster she's battled her entire life. Yet, I did it regardless.
"I told myself it was to protect you," I say. Still facing the window. "The arrangement. The sixty days. I had the logic worked out—close the file, remove the weapon the board was using against you, give us both sixty days of breathing room." I pause. "But that's not why I did it."
She doesn't say anything.
“I did it because I was afraid of what you'd say if I asked you.
I knew you'd refuse, and that would mean I'd have to face the very thing I was trying to avoid, which I couldn't do—" I pause.
"I prioritized my own comfort over your right to decide.
I realized my actions mirrored the same systems that have determined what you could handle without consulting you first. Yet, I did it anyway. "
The clock ticks.
"That's what I should have said when you first confronted me about it," I say. "Instead of rationalizing my decision. Hindsight, I guess.”
I hear the small sound she makes—not quite a breath, not quite a sob. Something caught and held.
Then I hear her weight shift on the crutches.